Dozens gather at MUN during Muskrat Falls announcement to protest B.C. pipeline

About 100 people gathered at Memorial University's Signal Hill campus Monday afternoon to protest the construction of a British Columbia pipeline.

The demonstration — held near Monday's announcement of a Muskrat Falls rate-mitigation agreement, with federal Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan in attendance — was a move of solidarity with the Wet'suwet'en Nation, who oppose the development of a pipeline on their territory in British Columbia, and to protest the RCMP, who arrested Wet'suwet'en members blocking access to the pipeline construction site.

"We are organizing to show the provincial and federal governments that we will not sit idly by," reads the Facebook page.

The protest coincides with the International Days of Solidarity with Wet'suwet'en, organized by the Indigenous Climate Action group. It is one of a number of protests across Canada.

"From coast to coast to coast, communities of indigenous and non-indigenous alike are standing up and saying we have to end these large scale extractive projects," said Rachel Jekanowski, one of the organizers and a co-founder of Solidarity with Labrador, a Facebook group for people opposed to the Muskrat Falls project.

"We have to listen to Indigenous communities."

The protest could be heard during Premier Dwight Ball's remarks during the rate mitigation announcement.

Federal Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan was also in attendance to discuss rate mitigation.

Margaret Cranford came to the protest to make sure her message to O'Regan was loud and clear.

"Get on board," Cranford said. "Each one of us are responsible for healing.… Stop destroying the land and the water. Have some compassion.… Listen to what the earth is saying."

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador